Wednesday, March 24, 2010

"A patent-holding Illinois ophthalmologist has sued Microsoft over the Zune, alleging the software company illegally added his patented technology to the media player after he tried to license it to Microsoft. Dr. Edward Yavitz, of the Yavitz Eye Center in Rockford, Ill., says Microsoft willingly infringed two of his patents that cover a method for quickly tagging and downloading music via a device's FM radio receiver. ASeptember 2008 firmware update for the Zune let users buy music through the FM app, by tagging a song and downloading via wi-fi. In his complaint (PDF), Yavitz says he sent Microsoft a letter in October 2006 to pitch them the idea for the next Zune. His patents – Nos. 6,463,649 and 6,473,792 – were both filed in 2000 and granted in 2002."

File this one under odd. Dr. Yavitz is claiming he not only invented the idea of buying a song over the air, but radio tagging too. Uh not quite. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say for sure that he's wrong but I think before the 3.0 firmware update, everyone and their dog was calling for the wifi to be used in this way. His sending two unanswered letters isn't what caused them to put wireless purchasing on the device. It likely had more to do with this than anything else. And this is the best part: "Calls to the Yavitz Eye Center were unsuccessful because the business was closed, and Yavitz's phone number was unlisted." Call me cynical but this isn't the stuff great lawsuits are made of.

Friday, March 2, 2007

"Our study of the 21 most important iPhone patents was able to generate such an accurate description of the iPhone that we decided to carry out the same study on the Zune phone which will be announced by Microsoft sometime this year. As you can see from the patents Microsoft have been very busy and its amazing to see how one image looks much the same as the image released by Crunch Gear. Interestingly some patents mention a clamshell phone. Could the Zune come in a clamshell version as well?"

Hmm... A clamshell Zune? So, how is that not a Smartphone? Because they put a different OS in it? Seriously, I think they'd do just as well rebranding an HTC Star Trek as the "Cingular Zune". In any case, these patents, when put together, do make a compelling argument for a Zune phone. It makes for pretty dry reading, but the posting does a pretty good job of cutting out the fat. You know, I would have thought for sure Creative already patented the "Capacitance touch slider"...